Hold Fast – Margaret LeJeune

Semaphore, analog film double exposure, archival inkjet print, 2019
collaboration with Rachael Allain (UK)

Hold FastMargaret LeJeune, Sabbatical Exhibition
Hartmann Center Gallery
January 22 – February 20
Lecture: February 20, 5pm – Horowitz Auditorium, Caterpillar Global Communications Center
Reception: February 20, 6-7:30pm

The exhibition Hold Fast by Associate Professor of Photography Margaret LeJeune will be on display in Hartmann Center Gallery January 22 – February 20. Join us for a Visual Voices lecture presented by LeJeune on February 20th in Horowitz Auditorium, which will be immediately followed by an artist reception in the gallery.

This exhibition features five bodies of photographic work created over the course of LeJeune’s year long 2018-2019 sabbatical. Issues of climate change, habitat loss, native species, ecology, and our complicated relationship to the sea are explored in these works.

Learn more about the artist at: margaretlejeune.com

Hartmann Center Gallery
1423 St. James Ave
Peoria, IL 61625

Monday – Friday: 9am – 5pm
and by appointment

Archiving Eden

 Poppy, archival pigment print

Dornith Doherty – The Bunn Lectureship in Photography
Heuser Art Gallery
January 13 – February 20
Lecture: February 6, 5pm – Horowitz Auditorium, Caterpillar Global Communications Center
Reception: February 6, 6-7:30pm

This photography exhibition by Texas-based artist Dornith Doherty intertwines science and art, showcasing the planet’s botanical diversity through 17 images from seed banks across the world.

For nearly 10 years, Doherty traveled the world from Australia to Russia photographing seed banks, which are designed to preserve the world’s crops and plants against species loss brought by blight, development, global warming, pests, unexpected change, and war. Long interested in how humans shape the land, Doherty explored seed vaults and the activities of their research scientists. Starting with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas, she visited key facilities across five continents, including the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, just south of the North Pole on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. Svalbard, one of more than 1,700 seed banks across the globe, is special because it houses duplicate seeds from other vaults to serve as a backup in case of a natural or man-made disaster. Because of its location, it is better positioned to withstand the potential aftermath of global warming or other man-made global disasters.

Spurred by the completion of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Dornith Doherty began Archiving Eden in 2008 as a way to explore the role of seed banks and their preservation efforts in the face of climate change and the extinction of natural species.

This program has been made possible by the generous support of The Bunn Lectureship in Photography series. Because of this support from Bradley alums, Jacob and Lorrie Bunn, for over 20 years The Bunn Lectureship in Photography has brought nationally and internationally recognized photographers to Bradley’s campus. With the goal of broadening and enriching students’ educational experience, this program provides exhibitions, lectures, and workshops where students benefit from direct interaction with professional photographers.

Learn more the project and artist at: www.dornithdoherty.com/archiving-eden

Katelynn Shook – Photography Capstone Exhibition

Reception: December 13th 5:30-7pm, Red Door Gallery, Heuser Art Center Third Floor


Join us this Friday, December 13th from 5:30-7PM to celebrate Katelynn Shook’s Senior Capstone Exhibition at the Red Door Gallery (3rd floor Heuser Art Center). The exhibition will be on display December 6 – 12, 2019.


Gallery Hours: M – Th 12pm – 7pm, F 12pm – 4pm

Gallery Location: 1400 W Bradley Ave, Peoria IL

SACRED – MA Exhibition by Hattie Lee

SACRED: MA Exhibition – Hattie Lee
Prairie Center of the Arts
December 11 – 18
Reception: December 13, 5:30-7pm

Join us for SACRED an MA Exhibition featuring the artwork of Hattie Lee. This body of work is inspired by cultural designs and Cherokee genealogy and features painting, fiber art, and intaglio printmaking. The exhibition will be on display at Prairie Center of the Arts December 11 – 18, 2019. A reception will be held on December 13th from 5:30-7pm.

Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday, 10:00am – 3:00pm

Location: 1506 SW Washington Street

Dana Fritz – Terraria Gigantica : The World Under Glass

Green Ductwork, Eden Project

Red Door Gallery, Heuser Art Center Third Floor
November 1 – December 6,                                                                                                Hours: M-Th 12pm-7pm, F 12pm-4pm  
Reception: 
November 7, 6-7:30pm

From the Artist:

The photographs in the series Terraria Gigantica: The World under Glass frame the world’s largest enclosed landscapes as possible impossibilities: Biosphere 2’s ocean in the Arizona desert, the Henry Doorly Zoo’s desert in the Great Plains of Nebraska, Eden Project’s tropical rain forest in notoriously gray and cool Cornwall, England, and the high-elevation Cloud Forest at sea-level in Singapore. These vivaria are enclosed environments where plants are grown amidst carefully constructed representations of the natural world to entertain and educate visiting tourists. At the same time, however, they support scientific observation and research on the plants and animals housed under these ‘natural conditions’ that require human control of temperature, humidity, irrigation, insects, and weeds to cultivate otherwise impossible environments and species. Taken together, these architectural and engineering marvels stand as working symbols of our current and complex position within the natural world.

Built in the late 1980s to study complex closed systems, Biosphere 2 was designed as an airtight replica of the Earth’s environment. This glass and metal-framed structure contains a tropical rain forest, mangrove wetlands, a fog desert, savannah grassland, and an ocean with a coral reef. No longer airtight, it is repurposed toward research and education about sustaining our planet Earth, ‘Biosphere 1,’ through study of water, climate, and energy. The Henry Doorly Zoo supports both education and research on a campus with the largest indoor jungle and desert in the United States. Here, the illusionism of these immersive environments also incorporates the display of the animals that live there. The Eden Project was built with a mission to educate about environmental conservation and sustainability. It currently houses over 1 million plants and models sustainable practices in construction, waste reduction, and resource management. Like the Eden Project, the Cloud Forest in Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay is showcase for sustainable architecture and an opportunity for visitors to learn about tropical rain forest ecosystems as well as how to save them from extinction.

While the technical and aesthetic demands of these varying missions informed the physical design of these spaces, the required juxtapositions of natural and artificial elements also generate unintentionally striking visual paradoxes that can go unnoticed. In these carefully constructed exhibits, I turn away from the crowds of visitors, looking for views where the illusion gives way. In these margins, these liminal spaces, the natural and the artificial sometimes meet, overlap, and bleed together, or they collide, resist, and contrast with one another. The visual richness of these small details leads to big questions about what it means to create and contain landscapes. They ask us to think about our interactions with and attitudes about the non-human world. They ask us to consider whether these spaces supplement or replace those outside. They ask us to reflect on the distinction between the natural and the artificial. Under the glass, I frame these views and invite contemplation of nature’s future in a time of climate crisis.

Learn more about the artist: http://www.danafritz.com/

Change Agents: Midwest Women Eco Artists

Hartmann Center Gallery
October 16 – December 20
Reception: November 7 6-7:30pm

An exhibition featuring the artwork of Sara Black + Amber Ginsburg, Sarah FitzSimons, Candace Hunter, and Vivian Visser will be held in Hartmann Center Gallery October 16 – December 20th. The work of these environmental artists includes installation, sculpture and fabric. This exhibition is organized in conjunction with the Midwest Women Artists Symposium taking place November 7th & 8th on campus.

Learn More about the Symposium

Image: Sara Black + Amber Ginsburg

7000 Marks, 2016-ongoing – Photo from SPACES Gallery, Cleveland OH

Midwest Women Making Art Because the World Matters

Heuser Art Gallery
October 16 – December 20
Reception: November 7, 6-7:30pm

An exhibition featuring the artwork of Karen McCoy, Cherie Sampson, Jill Sebastian, and Frances Whitehead will be held in Heuser Art Gallery October 16 – December 20th. The work of these environmental artists includes installation, art video, prints, and paintings addressing issues of nature, environment, plant life, landscape, geography, and mythology. This exhibition is organized in conjunction with the Midwest Women Artists Symposium taking place November 7th & 8th on campus.

Learn More about the Symposium

Image: Karen McCoy, Treading Water, 2001

Body print with Kansas City clay and pigment on paper, 5′ 5″ x 6′

Half Hazard Press

Visual Voices LectureHalf Hazard Press
October 3rd, 5pm – Horowitz Auditorium, Caterpillar Global Communications Center

Join us for a Visual Voices Lecture presented by Half Hazard Press this Thursday from 5pm-6pm in Horowitz Auditorium. Half Hazard Press (H.H.P.) is a genuine underground, All American print & design studio dedicated to the craft of making unique & one-of-a-kind items. They believe in the simple merits of hard work, using your hands, & putting good out in the world. With a heavy arsenal of trade skills, they bring experience & moxie into their approach to making flatstock paper goods or paraphernalia & live by the gospel of concept & process.
Half Hazard Press was born in the true heart of the Midwest, & raised amidst the sprawling fields of corn & soy. Known natively as Gentlemen of the Press, word has spread over land & sea, branding them as Scoundrels of the Arts in their search for similar minds.


Learn more at: https://www.halfhazardpress.com

7th Biennial Central Time Ceramics – Call for Entries

John Utgarrd – The Place You Go, earthenware

Announcing the 7th Biennial Central Time Ceramics International juried exhibition!  The show will be juried by Doug Jeppesen.

Doug Jeppesen holds a BA in Art History and a BFA in Art with an emphasis in ceramics from the University of Tulsa, and a MFA from Northern Illinois University.  Doug holds the title of Associate Professor of Art/Ceramics at Waubonsee Community College in Sugar Grove, Illinois where he has taught full time since 1998. 

This international exhibition is open to all ceramic artists over the age of 18, who currently reside in the Central Time Zone.  For entry details and exhibition information visit the Call For Entries page.  Or download the CTC Prospectus.

Awards: 1st place – $1,000, 2nd place – $500, 3rd place – $250

Art and Design Faculty Exhibition

Art and Design Faculty Exhibition
August 28 – September 27 – Hartmann Center Gallery
Reception: September 6, 5-7pm

Join us for the Art and Design Faculty Exhibition being held in Hartmann Center Gallery August 28 – September 27, 2019. A reception will be held September 6 from 5-7pm in the gallery. This exhibition will feature the artwork of Jessica Benjamin, Erin Buczynski, Randall Carlson, Sara Stewart Diemer, Michael Gilbert, Oscar Gillespie, Paul Krainak, Margaret LeJeune, Eugene Maison, Alexander Martin, Kimberly Mitchell, Susanne Nestory, Robert Rowe, Fisher Stolz, Gary Will, and Jacqueline Willis